By Taylor Boyd
The Town of Stuart received additional loan funds from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Mayor Ray Weiland said.
“We did our original loan-grant fund through the USDA, and our project got bigger. We asked for more money and they gave us more money,” he said.
Weiland said the town received a letter stating that “additional rural development loan funds in the amount of $454,000 and additional rural development grant funds in the amount of $421,000 have been approved.
“So, these additional funds and along with previously approved funds will be used to make necessary improvements to the county’s waste water system. It’s been a good year. We started out with our major project, and we didn’t think that we would ever get this additional money and we thought it would be all loan, but they did give us loan and grant with the second amount. With the CARES Act, that’s really going to bring our sewer plant up to excellent shape,” he said.
Weiland said he has been receiving complaints about properties in town that have unkempt and trash filled yards.
“I think we’re going to have to take another trip around town and make a list and send another batch of letters” to address these complaints and the derelict buildings, he said.
Town Manager Terry Tilley said work continues to get an easement to replace a water line on Riverside Drive.
“We’ve never replaced any of it in over 42 years, and the people just aren’t getting very much water on the end down there. Everything’s just clogged up and so forth,” he said, adding he thinks this project could start within the next couple of weeks.
Tilley said the council received a report from Capt. Jonathan Wilson, of the Stuart Volunteer Fire Department on the calls the department ran in 2020. According to the report, Tilley said the department ran 146 fire related calls, including 15 structure fires, seven brushfires and seven vehicle related.
Tilley said the department also ran 30 motor vehicle accident calls, and 87 emergency medical services calls.
“We had 1,149 hours for calls and events where we went out on calls. The training was 1,048 hours. So, the guys over at the fire station are staying busy,” Tilley said, adding Terry Dalton is one of the top call runners in the department.
Tilley said 112 of the calls were ran inside town limits and 121 were outside of town limits. Mutual aid was given in 40 calls and mutual aid was received in 13 calls.
Erica Cipko, council member and a volunteer with the department, said the total hours were down due to the pandemic.
“We were off about 1,500 hours because of the festivals and stuff,” she said.
Chris Corbett, Town Attorney and member of the department, said “the town gives us $12,000 a year, and the county gives us $17,000 a year.”
Weiland added the department also expanded the area it covers.
Dean Goad said the issue he has is the department not getting money percentage wise for the amount of calls it runs outside of its area.
“You want to help them if they got a problem out in the county somewhere and call. By all means we go and help them, and they come in and help us. But here we took over all these other parts of the county that we didn’t have and now we got to cover them. I think we should be getting more from the county for part of the area we cover,” Goad said.
